The news came just hours before the deadline for registering candidate lists for the January election. Peretz is the second former Labor chief to join Livni's newly formed party.

Tzipi Livni, chair of the Hatnuah political movement, announced on Thursday morning that former Labor chief MK Amir Peretz will be joining her newly formed party in the upcoming elections, as the deadline for registering candidate lists for the January election nears.

The snide, divisive response to this news by the Labor Party shows the
pettiness that engulfs the politics of Israel at a time when opposition
to the extreme right needs to coalesce. For the sake of Israel's soul
and its future - please unite!

Labor thinks it can run without uttering a peep about the Palestinian
issue. And then join Netanayhu's government. You would think Barak was
still in charge. Peretz is right; there won't be a social agenda
without a just peace agenda. All the left of center parties need to
unite to stop the right. But it won't happen.

Yachimovich is as you say somebody has zero experience and so is not fit
to run the country, is it healthy for country to be run by a far left
idealist, which she is but tries to hide it with words like centrist
make herself sound more electable because the majority do not wand the
country run by the left. You don't have to like Bibi as a man or his
policies but there is no denying he has the experience in both political
and outside world that lets him say I AM ELECTABLE AND YOU CAN TRUST THE
COUNTRY WITH ME. Shelly has non of that. She kind or reminds me of Lapid
right now, no agenda but talking about social issues because thats very
fashionable amongst the traditional Labor voters and amongst the first
time voters as a result of the protests.Peretz is even further to the
left than Shelly and whilst he is more experienced than Shelly he hardly
has an image of the country is safe in my hands. Barak was not to the
far left of Labor and he also knew its better to be in government than
outside so he joined the coalition. later he had a falling out with
Labor so didn't really have anywhere to go and he was also content with
the DM job. Livni & Peretz, sorry no social agenda there, Livni has
been Likud, Kadima until her ego got the better of her and she quit
rather than stay on under Mofaz leadership and now she has formed her
own party. Like Lapid she has no agenda all that matters is her career
and she is telling people what they want to hear so she can develop a
platform says she stands for something who unlike Lapid is not
pretending she is left, right, pro religion and anti religion all in a
single package because she hopes to be more than a 1 election wonder. I
imagine unlike Shelly if Bibi invites her to join the coalition she will
not be letting morals and ideology get in the way, if she thinks it
would help her she would join. This countries problem is its based on
coalition government so the majority of votes are wasted on single issue
parties and MKs are not elected directly so there are alot of people on
various party lists who the public would not elect if they voted by
districts then we really would see an end to this roundabout of
switching parties and unstable coalitions. The PM should also be
directly elected, do that and we wouldn't get rookies like Shelly
because a condition of running for the premieship is you have been in
politics a minimum number of years and must have held a ministerial post
before that way the PM would always be somebody with at least some experience.

....psst, guys... here.... may I also join Tzipi?.... What did Tzipi
Livny accomplished so far? Nothing but a big EGO. I just came back from
vacations in a certain south american country where they had elections
for the regional councils and munipalities There was one female
candidate who was depicted as "The Smile of XXXX"- Some
analogy, eh?

Peretz is exactly the kind of person Livni doesn't want because she
wants to look responsible whilst Peretz is from the loony left who put
ideology before running the country. Peretz & Shelly had a falling
out because whilst she said it was unlikely she would join a right wing
coalition with Bibi she wouldn't rule anything out Peretz wanted her to
guarantee she would not join on morality grounds. Livni wants to sell
herself as something a little more centrist Peretz is hard left and not
the kind of person Livni needs. I imagine when she holds her primaries
Peretz won't get a top spot even though he was number 2 in Labor. Peretz
should go back to where he belongs, the Histadrut and stay out of politics

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